


Avatar

by micehell



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Implied Relationships, M/M, Not Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-13
Updated: 2006-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-20 19:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never read it.</p>
            </blockquote>





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The box was metal, slate gray, utilitarian. No sign of the destructive potential it held was visible on the outside.

It sat in a closet at the back of the room, behind Rodney's extra pair of boots and next to the football that John had sometimes sent sailing down long corridors when they'd first arrived; the ball brown, synthetic, mundane, and yet alien among the greens and blues, the spare, echoing beauty of Atlantis' halls.

Rodney never touched the box, a talisman of things he didn't want to think about, and didn't, through the same force of will that had made people in two galaxies quail. He didn't touch the box. He didn't open it. He didn't look through the papers that nested there.

Most of the paper had the weight of formality; vellum, linen, watermarks. Records of a life lived in a paper-bound society, where notable moments were commemorated by the death of trees. But there was one piece in the box that didn't fit in; the poor cousin in cheap stationery, the writing on it from a disposable Bic, ink uneven, stuttering out its message as it neared its end.

It was the outlier that kept Rodney away. The rest of the box called to him, pieces of John's history, before Atlantis, before Rodney, spelled out in exactly the way that John'd never been. His fingers itched to run over all of it, to see the folds of ivory open at his touch, in exactly the way that John had done. But he couldn't risk touching that one letter. Could not risk it.

Rodney wasn't religious. He wasn't superstitious. Mainly. Knowledge was his god, and he worshipped it curiously. But not even his need to know could overcome Rodney's dread of that letter. He'd never read it, the box safe from his fear of the unknown.

He never read it, even long after the others had given up hope.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a writing exercise, geared towards writing without having the story thought out ahead of time, and, considering what that led to, was pretty much the last time I tried that. ;) I like to tell myself that, in the end, Rodney is rewarded for his refusal to accept what the others do, so by all means come live in denial with me!


End file.
